Week Ending 3/8/24
Oscars Time!
I sadly didn’t get to all the nominees this year due to my ongoing hectic schedule. EL CONDE, THE ETERNAL MEMORY, TO KILL A TIGER, and INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY were my misses. So, I didn’t do too bad.
My predictions on the big awards:
BEST PICTURE Who I think will win: OPPENHEIMER Who I want to win: THE HOLDOVERS BEST DIRECTOR Who I think will win: Christopher Nolan - OPPENHEIMER Who I want to win: Christopher Nolan - OPPENHEIMER BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Who I think will win: Justine Triet & Arthur Harari - ANATOMY OF A FALL Who I want to win: Celine Song - PAST LIVES BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Who I think will win: Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach - BARBIE Who I want to win: Jonathan Glazer - THE ZONE OF INTEREST BEST LEAD ACTOR Who I think will win: Cillian Murphy - OPPENHEIMER Who I want to win: Colman Domingo - RUSTIN BEST LEAD ACTRESS Who I think will win: Lily Gladstone - KILLER OF THE FLOWER MOON Who I want to win: Lily Gladstone - KILLER OF THE FLOWER MOON BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Who I think will win: Robert Downey Jr. - OPPENHEIMER Who I want to win: Robert Downey Jr. - OPPENHEIMER BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Who I think will win: Da'Vine Joy Randolph - THE HOLDOVERS Who I want to win: Da'Vine Joy Randolph - THE HOLDOVERS
I’m honestly just hoping for an entertaining show since I’m going to stick to my word and refrain from using Twitter. Last year was just too mean and catty a pool of comments to pick from for my annual recap. The fun of following people with actual wit is over.
As for new releases … I didn’t watch any. I thought about getting a screener for CABRINI since it filmed in Buffalo and a ton of theaters are showing it locally, but it didn’t look great and it’s from the weird studio that released SOUND OF FREEDOM by inflating its box office via rich conservatives.
So, I caught up with a couple titles released during the past few months, finished TRUE DETECTIVE season 3 (which I really enjoyed even if it’s the most uneven of the series, leaving my current ranking as s2 > s1 > s3), and started NIGHT COUNTRY (so far so good).
What I Watched:
NO HARD FEELINGS
(streaming on Netflix; available on Digital HD)
There’s no better commentary on NO HARD FEELINGS being made/released in 2023 as a throwback to the raunchy R-rated comedies we received in the 80s and 90s then a moment when Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) tells two soon-to-be Princeton freshmen to screw each other. It’s the sort of comeback you would always hear when drunk coeds objectified a woman who has had enough. It provides an easy means with which to emasculate toxicity—playing into the presumed homophobia that causes men to act the way they do regardless of the retort’s inherent dismissal of homosexuality as a punch line.
Director Gene Stupnitsky and co-writer John Phillips thankfully know this, so they flip the scene on its head … twice. One: the coeds aren’t sexualizing Maddie. They are in fact calling her old and out-of-place as a thirty-two-year-old attending a high school party. Two: the coeds call her out for being in the wrong, accusing her of bigotry before shaming her by taking out their phones to record. It’s the sort of “pc-joke” that will give Red State America aneurisms while screaming “woke!” at the top of their lungs and a witty, timely, and self-aware subversion that earns a laugh from those who see the history packed into the exchange. And it’s also a prime example for why films like this no longer need to exist.
Because while NO HARD FEELINGS succeeds in its goal to harken back to yesteryear, it also succeeds in proving why yesteryear should remain in the past. Gender-swapping the characters so Lawrence gets a nude fight scene that Hollywood can label “empowering” doesn’t negate the fact that the subject matter itself is still reductive and dated to the point of obsolescence no matter the perspective shift. The script knows it too since it’s constantly toeing the line in a way that defangs the raunchiness for overt life lessons that need a manipulative score to remind us that these human beings are hurting and searching for community while trapped beneath their respective “daddy issues.”
As such, it’s tough to truly love or hate the result. It’s funny and stupid. It’s crass and heartfelt. It’s perpetually trying to have its cake and eat it too. If not for Lawrence and co-star Andrew Barth Feldman (as nineteen-year-old Percy, whose parents hire Maddie to “deflower” him in exchange for a car she needs to work and save her mother’s home from seizure by the IRS), I’d probably hate this film for never quite having the guts to be the movie it so desperately pretends it is. They are so good and authentic in their feelings and epiphanies that you can almost believe the filmmakers were making a character study rather than exploiting one for cheap laughs. My final verdict: It’s fine!
- 6/10
SUNCOAST
(streaming on Hulu)
Films like Laura Chinn’s SUNCOAST too often try to approximate the feelings of grief with a sense of certainty that simply does not exist in the moment. Yes, in hindsight, we understand the situation and learn to accept it, but the effects of tragedy aren’t experienced the same by everyone. Heck, you might not experience them the same once tragedy strikes again regardless of any desire to go in with open eyes. Because, as Doris (Nico Parker) tells her teacher, you simply cannot know anything until you know it. The rest is speculation. Noise. Deflection.
And that’s why this story, as presented on-screen, resonates so well. Chinn has put her own experience into this film in a way that allows it to unfold with all the pain and uncertainty that goes into losing someone you love—someone you’ve sacrificed a lot of yourself to try and make their life better. Most of that hurt comes from denial and much of that denial comes from the constant desire on the behalf of others to tell you not to deny it. But what good are Doris’s mom’s (Laura Linney’s Kristine) demands when she herself is caught within the same trap?
It’s why we need a third character. An objective party to tell truths without being so emotionally invested that they negatively impact the chance those truths are heard. Enter Woody Harrelson’s Paul in a role that is much smaller than you might anticipate considering his billing and face on the poster. Just because his screen-time is minimal, however, doesn’t mean his impact is. He’s a sort of mirror for both Doris and Kristine even if he serves that role for us as viewers more so than them. He’s gone through what they are going through. He has hindsight and experience, but he also knows it’s not up to him whether they listen.
Nor should they be forced to do so. Doris is a teenager dealing with life in ways that no one her age should. Grandmother dead the day she’s born. Father dead by age five. Brother catatonic and about to pass himself after six years of being under her care. You cannot begrudge her for seeing hospice as a chance to be free. To live for herself again and make new friends. To be a kid. Maybe it’s not the greatest look considering the circumstances, but that’s not on Kristine to shame her about. This is about Doris reconciling the need to laugh with the heavy burden of watching someone she loves die. There’s no “right” way to do it.
Kudos to Chinn for embracing the mess. Yes, there are some convenient moments like that classroom conversation with Doris laying out the film’s themes, but the overall vibe remains one built on confusion and mistakes. It takes guts to write what Kristine does to Doris and knowledge of these characters/ complexity to do so in a way that lets the rage hit without erasing the sorrow. These are people trying their best to navigate an impossible ordeal while sometimes falling prey to the momentary satisfaction of transferring their pain onto each other. And it unfolds beautifully thanks to Chinn’s words and Linney and Parker’s great performances.
- 8/10
Cinematic F-Bombs:
This weekend sees KING’S RANSOM (2005), PUSH (2009), THE SIX WIVES OF HENRY LEFAY (2010), SMOTHER (2008), and STAY COOL (2011) getting added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com on Sunday, Twitter on Monday).
New Releases This Week:
(Review links where applicable)
Opening Buffalo-area theaters 3/8/24 -
CABRINI at North Park Theatre; Dipson Amherst, Flix & McKinley; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
GAAMI at Regal Transit
IMAGINARY at Dipson Flix, McKinley, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
KUNG FU PANDA 4 at Dipson Flix, McKinley, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
PREMALU at Regal Elmwood
SHAITAAN at Regal Elmwood, Transit & Galleria
Streaming from 3/8/24 -
DAMSEL – Netflix on 3/8
SATANIC HISPANICS – Shudder on 3/8
WONKA – Max on 3/8
THE LIONHEART – Max on 3/12
LITTLE WING – Paramount+ on 3/13
24 HOURS WITH GASPAR – Netflix on 3/14
ART OF LOVE – Netflix on 3/14
FRIDA – Prime on 3/14
Now on VOD/Digital HD -
ARGYLLE (3/5)
BEFORE I CHANGE MY MIND (3/5)
PERFECT DAYS (3/5)
“It's a quietly sweet look at a person unbeholden to the constraints of an ever-evolving society's demands—a man who knows himself and is comfortable living within the meager means of that identity.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
THE TEACHER’S LOUNGE (3/5)
“It's a tense and heartbreaking journey as the ripple effects of what occurs threatens to destroy futures. And, to make matters more complex, truth should become secondary to the most important aspect of the whole: the safety of children.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
5LBS OF PRESSURE (3/8)
AMERICAN DREAMER (3/8)
DRUGSTORE JUNE (3/8)
NIGHT SHIFT (3/8)
SPACE: THE LONGEST GOODBYE (3/8)
From the press kit archive:
